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Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Parcels rainin' down

There will be a few deliveries today. My heart sinks. I work mainly from home, so we both make full use of t'internet to order anything we may or may not need.

First I have to make sure I am showered and dressed by 8am. There's nothing worse than the door bell ringing when you're not decent.

I try to avoid sorties into the garden lest I don't hear their feeble knocking on the door.

There is a bell, but it seems too much trouble to press it.

I pointed out the bell to a regular delivery man, who said belligerently "it doesn't work." I gently pressed it; the bell screeched, and he just shrugged.

I suspect they are paid by how many deliveries they attempt, not how many are actually made. Many's the time I have rushed downstairs from the office to answer the door to find the delivery man already backing off down the drive without having waited.

The no-shows, when you have specifically requested delivery on a particular day, are particularly galling. You stay in all day, even though you're champing at the bit to get to the post office or buy some bread for lunch. With the risk of an evening delivery you now have to stay in all evening too. And then they don't show up!

Sometimes the attempts to deliver are just as bad. One regular driver had the habit of throwing our parcels over the back fence, until I found a sodden package containing a dress that was now ruined because we had been away for a few days.

Last week a skirt was somehow squashed and forced through the letter box. The skirt was fine, but had I wanted to return it, the returns note would have needed ironing.

For the purposes of today's expected deliveries I may put a large sign on the door pointing to the bell and asking them to press it - hard.